Monday, November 23, 2015

Is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? I guess I am. We have had one beautiful Thanksgiving dinner already at our son's home and I will cook our smaller Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving. When a family grows it gets harder and harder to get everyone together for one day so we stretch ours and have several! This Thanksgiving dinner will be the smallest I have ever made in the 57 years of cooking Thanksgiving dinner so I am going to have to downsize all of my recipes. So that will be a challenge!

Brand Thunder just notified me that my Minions New Tab theme is on line now. I had so much fun making them and they were a lot of work.

I had a traumatic Saturday! I think I have mentioned that my husband has resurrected my Keurig coffee maker (that we bought for our anniversary about 5 or 6 years ago) many times. Most people would have thrown it away 2 years ago, but he kept bringing it back to life. And I had read reviews on the new ones and they aren't very good. BUT I decided I had to replace it since it wouldn't stop putting out water! I don't like spending that much money. But I got my new one and if it lasts as long as the old one I guess I can't complain. The new ones won't let you use any coffee pods but Keurig brand. If you put in a different brand it will say Oops! And no one likes an Oops! But our daughter told me about San Francisco Bay coffee and it is half the price and they made their pods with no plastic case. They figured out a way to make them work in a Keurig. It is really good coffee. Plus you can get a Freedom Clip from them in a sample package that you can clip into the coffee maker so other brands or older Keurig pods will work. I think Keurig made a mistake by making their coffee maker to only use their brand coffee, which is good but costly.

I am working on a couple more themes fro Brand Thunder besides the Christmas ones for Firefox so better get back to work.

Mozilla hasn't fixed the User Count yet and it has been "broken" since November 9th so you don't know if anyone likes your theme or not. I guess it isn't top priority for them.

I want to wish you all a wonderful, cozy Thanksgiving and hope you can be with family. If not, make a phone call!

This theme is the one I am most proud of. I love working with wolves and when Brand Thunder asked me to make this I was really pleased. The design that is on the first tab was made with Photoshop brushes and a fade. I hope everyone will like it that tries it our. You have to use Google Chrome to use this and since I am a true Firefox user I can't use it. Wish I could.

I just submitted 13 Christmas Minions New Tab Themes to Brand Thunder and will post the link as soon as they are on line. They were a lot of work but lots of fun.

I hope everyone is having a nice Veterans Day. I want to take this time to thank all the veterans out there that happen to read my silly little blog. I thank them for all they have done for us that have stayed home safe and sound. They are the reason we can stay home and be safe. Thank you.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

I have been working on holiday themes. Brand Thunder asked me to make a set of Minion Christmas New Tab Page themes for them so I have started those. Lots of work putting hats, holly, scarves, etc. on those little guys. But I love a challenge.

The only problem I am having is with my hands. Especially my right hand. I have Reynaud's so as soon as the weather starts cooling down I get cold. I dress for inside like most people do when they are outside, but my hands still get cold. Plus using the mouse so much for placement making themes makes them hurt more. I woke up the other night and my right hand hurt so bad I couldn't get back to sleep.

It looks like the local election turned out the way we wanted but we have to wait until the final tally for sure. One proposition and one council member didn't look good yesterday but that changed after yesterday's count so I am hoping it stays this way.

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(A little about me)

I once said I never wanted a computer, BUT...one of my grandson's is in the IT Department at WWU and installed Firefox when he built my desktop computer. I really like it and won't use any other browser now. It is safe, fast and has tons of extensions to make it easy for your browsing. One of the add ons they have available are themes which they used to call Personas. They had been called Personas for several years and became very popular, but someone at Mozilla got the bright idea to change the name. Whatever you want to call them they are still a fun quick way to make your browser personal. You can find my Persona/Theme designs at:https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/gallery/Designer/MaDonna

I make desktop wallpaper designs to match many of my themes, which you can use as background themes for GMail. You can also use them as a wallpaper for your cell phone. You can find my desktop wallpaper designs at: http://my.desktopnexus.com/MaDonnas/uploads/

I have been making theme designs for my own personal Firefox ever since it was installed. Then it was opened so you could submit designs for approval in 2008. My design called Sunset Over Water had over a million and a half people using it at one time. It is from a photo I took off Chuckanut Drive on our way home from a wedding.

I have always been interested in design. When I was a little girl I designed clothing for my paper dolls. Then designed and made clothes for my regular dolls. I made most of my own clothing in high school. When I was older I designed, sewed and made our 3 kids clothing. When they got married and started having babies I made tons of clothes for our 7 grand kids. I decided to sell some of my designs. Fibromyalgia decided to put a stop to that. Sewing for hours a day was just too much.

I am a bit of an over-achiever and when I start something, I don't know when to quit! I have done a little bit of sewing for our great grand kids, but I know I have a limit and when to stop.

I used to design and make jewelry and sold at bazaars which was a lot of fun.

I work on themes and desktop wallpaper designs almost every day and have enjoyed hearing from people all over the world.

I was asked to design themes for Brand Thunder. They have theme designs for people that use Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and also Firefox. In 2012 I won a Nexus 7 tablet on a pop culture contest they held. They have changed their format so I don't make designs for them anymore.

I now use Photoshop Elements to make my designs. It is a very complicated program to use, especially at my age of almost 80.

Thank you all for your comments and using my designs. I will keep making them as long as I can and people enjoy using them.

A BIT MORE!

I love nature and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the animals
that roam our forests and back yards. That is the reason most of my
designs are nature based. I love going up into the mountains with my
husband of 61 years. He knows the mountains well and can take me places
where I can take photos I can use for both Persona designs and
wallpapers. It is getting harder and harder for me to take really good scenic shots, though, because of my age!

We have 3 grown children, 6 grandsons, 1 granddaughter, 4 great
grandsons and 1 great granddaughter. My family is the most important part of my life. I don't
get to see my brother or sister as much as I would like as we all live
in different states and I am not a traveler. My family moved a lot when I
was growing up and I pretty much like to just stay put now.

I loved riding dirt bikes and ATV's. I used to ride my Yamaha dirt bike in poker runs, enduro's and motocross and have a lot of trophies to show for it. And one bad knee after two surgeries! I rode dirt bikes before they had motocross gear for women. Had to buy gear for boys! But my most favorite thing was riding my Kawasaki 454 LTD road bike. My husband had a 454, too and we would go on cross country trips, especially to Winthrop, WA. My last year to ride was when I was 71 years old and it was hard to give up but I knew my strength wasn't up to it anymore. Summer isn't quite as much fun now because I can't ride, but I have so many wonderful memories.

I was born and raised a farm girl. In the early 1990's my husband and I started a group to protect the 500+ acre ranch close to us. A Japanese company had purchased it and wanted to build a development with over 2000 houses. Over 600 people from the community joined our group and we were successful in stopping the development. But instead of farming it like it should be, they built a golf course! We still do all we can to help preserve the farm land.

I have been doing a bit of freelance work, such as designing book covers, business cards, calenders, etc. It all keeps me very, very busy. Plus getting older it doesn't get any easier.